Supervisor Sign-Off as Ethical Shield State
Class
76d7158a
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#SupervisorSign-OffasEthicalShieldState
Definition
State in which a supervising licensed engineer explicitly offers to personally sign off on a design or action that a subordinate has been directed to perform, where that offer is made in the context of an ethically questionable or policy-violating directive — creating a structural pressure on the subordinate to comply by implying that supervisory authority and seal will absorb or neutralize the ethical and professional risk, when in fact the subordinate retains independent ethical obligations that cannot be delegated upward.
Properties
Subclass of
Definition
State in which a supervising licensed engineer explicitly offers to personally sign off on a design or action that a subordinate has been directed to perform, where that offer is made in the context of an ethically questionable or policy-violating directive — creating a structural pressure on the subordinate to comply by implying that supervisory authority and seal will absorb or neutralize the ethical and professional risk, when in fact the subordinate retains independent ethical obligations that cannot be delegated upward.
Source Evidence
Source Text
Engineer W tells Engineer Intern D, 'I'll sign off on it.'
TTL
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proethica_intermediate_extended: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate-extended> .
<http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#SupervisorSign-OffasEthicalShieldState> a owl:Class ;
rdfs:label "Supervisor Sign-Off as Ethical Shield State" ;
rdfs:comment "State in which a supervising licensed engineer explicitly offers to personally sign off on a design or action that a subordinate has been directed to perform, where that offer is made in the context of an ethically questionable or policy-violating directive — creating a structural pressure on the subordinate to comply by implying that supervisory authority and seal will absorb or neutralize the ethical and professional risk, when in fact the subordinate retains independent ethical obligations that cannot be delegated upward." ;
rdfs:subClassOf <http://proethica.org/ontology/core#State> .
Metadata
Ontology
Type
Class
Content Hash
76d7158a6644e7af...Last Updated
2026-03-12 16:49
Extraction Provenance
Discovered in Case
58
Discovered In Pass
1
Discovered In Section
facts
First Discovered At
2026-02-25T21:46:28.992815+00:00
First Discovered In Case
58
Generated
2026-02-25T21:46:28.992815+00:00
Was Attributed To
Case 58 Extraction